Software You Should Have: Reeder

Getting all your news in one place often proves to be a difficult task. Do you trawl through endless bookmarks or tangle yourself up in a broadsheet newspaper large enough to decorate a room? Well, the answer is, of course, no. What you should do is go ahead and download ‘Reeder’, a beautiful and functional RSS reader that allows you to categorise your RSS sources and get unobtrusive notifications.

Reeder works through your Google Reader account. Regrettably, Google have decided to bring the axe down on its Reader service from July 1 this year. Download the app now and import your sources, though, and you should be fine. Reeder syncs to other instances of the app (mobile versions on your iPhone or iPad) over iCloud, so adding feeds is just as simple. When you eventually decide you want to move to another service, you can simply export your sources as a .XML document.

As you can see in the lovely little screenshot above, Reeder has a very simple, intuitive interface.

All your sources appear on the left, sporting a number to let you know how many articles from that source remain unread. If, like me, lots of your sources report similar news, a “Mark all as read” button on the taskbar at the bottom proves frequently useful.

Reeder has ‘Readability’ integration, which simply converts long-form articles into a short, easy-to-read and well-formatted layout that cleverly displays inline media. With a simple outwards ‘pinch-to-zoom’ gesture on your MacBook’s trackpad, the article expands out into its original form.

Sharing options in Reeder are also in abundance, allowing you to share what you’re reading with whomever you choose on every social network you can imagine. Reeder includes support for Facebook, Twitter, Pinboard, Delicious, Zootool, Google Mobilizer, and more. Support for Instapaper and Pocket is also there, allowing you to push articles over to your reading list if you haven’t got the time there and then.

The app has won many awards for both its design and usability, and as a free app, you shouldn’t even think twice about downloading it. Reeder was previously upwards of £6.99 in the Mac App Store, and may increase to that again at some point in the near future, so we recommend you get in while the going’s good, so to speak.